Gold Fooling by Jerusha Jones

Author:Jerusha Jones
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: clean and wholesome, clean mystery, clean romance, cozy mystery, comedy, small town, female protagonist, heist, organized crime, kidnapping, murder, murder mystery, funny mystery, food, food mystery, oregon, washington, pacific northwest, police, fbi
Publisher: Jerusha Jones
Published: 2020-03-04T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 17

Do you know what’s bad for business? Police officers in hazmat suits swarming the outside of your house when you’re supposed to be serving thirty-six guests the most delicious supper of their lives on the rear deck.

It has to make them wonder what’s on the ingredient list.

And if they’ll be alive the following morning.

We didn’t cancel—it was too late.

Instead, we made up trays for the police officers too, and invited them into the living room to sprawl all over the insufficient furniture—and floor, on the big pillows I have for just such crowded occasions, once the evidence collection was completed. Vaughn, of course, rushed home, and brought just about everybody from the Fidelity Police Department with him. It was like a corporate retreat on a Saturday night.

Except, with anthrax.

Or rather, I should say—with the possibility of anthrax.

It turns out there was no anthrax.

Which was good for all of us, including the courier, who’d had absolutely no clue what was inside the package, whether good or evil or neutral. We ended up feeding him too, because Chief Monk brought him back to the Tin Can for questioning, so he got to taste the spicy pork meatballs he’d been salivating over at the front door.

Willow lied through her teeth and announced to all our supper-club guests as they were arriving that the baggy white suits and official, frowning people who were milling about were part of a drill, a special sort of surprise practice run that marinas have to go through periodically to keep their maritime leases in good order. That somehow life on the water is inherently more dangerous than life on land, and the residents of Marten’s Marina are particularly committed to their own safety as well as that of their visitors. It was a whopper of a fib but lent a special zest of excitement to the evening for our guests. Whose appetite doesn’t increase when they’re seated on the brink of...well, on the brink of something mysterious? I was proud of her creative problem-solving skills, especially because the last thing we needed was a stampede on the slippery wooden walkways of the marina.

Willow and I had designed the supper to be a lighthearted affair, a sampling, if you will, of casual foods not normally served for supper: sandwiches. But oh, what sandwiches!

Spicy pork meatballs and pickled vegetables stuffed into bánh mì and drizzled with a creamy cilantro-jalapeno dressing; croque monsieurs dipped in scrambled egg and grilled until golden and the cheese inside had melted perfectly; reubens à la Eva, which included prime corned beef, rinsed home-fermented red cabbage and Muenster cheese on sourdough with a dill-garlic aioli dressing. I’d been making these sandwiches for years—for friends. There is something so satisfying about the basics of bread and meat (plus a lot of other goodies) together in your hands, but it was our first time serving humble sandwiches to donating guests.

Since my kitchen isn’t licensed, we aren’t allowed to charge for the meals. But that has been no

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